Tonight WWE fans were shocked when the company released a multitude of superstars from Monday Night Raw, SmackDown, and NXT, and there were definitely some surprising names in the mix. Those included Nia Jax, who not that long ago held the Women’s Tag Team Championships with Shayna Baszler. The standard budget cuts reasoning was given for the releases according to the email that was sent to released talent, but a new report by Mat Men’s Andrew Zarian says that a source knowledgeable about the cuts said it is believed that four of the cut stars were released because of not being vaccinated.
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The New York Post spoke to a source with knowledge of WWE’s operations, and they were told that one of the reasons Jax was released was due to not being vaccinated. They don’t make mention of the other three names.
A new report from Fightful Select then revealed a few more details, as they confirmed with WWE sources that at least five of the stars released were “openly unvaccinated”, and those included some surprising names. The report goes on to say that this wasn’t the exclusive reason for being released but also notes that it is completely legal to release talent for not being vaccinated.
One last detail reveals that wrestlers in other companies had heard rumblings that vaccination-related talent cuts were going to happen in WWE, and these were expected to happen last Friday but didn’t.
Most of the new cuts affected NXT, with names like Franky Monet, Ember Moon, Oney Lorcan, and more. Then more Raw and SmackDown stars ended up being released, most notably Karrion Kross, Scarlett, and Keith Lee.
There were also stars who took to social media to share the news and also talk about how many days were on their non-competes, including Scarlett (30 days) and Lorcan, who also has 30 days. It’s unknown whether or not Lee and Kross were on the typical 90-day deals for Raw and SmackDown stars.
